Wednesday, November 15, 2006

IT heroes or IT victims

The unfortunate incident of the kidnapping of Anant (Dr. Naresh Gupta's son) has got me thinking. After careful thought, I believe it is going to be the first in a trend where a lot of new economy company heroes will become victims of crime. Think about it, the people who were victims of crime - specially dacioty, robbery, kidnapping and murders - used to be businessmen or bollywood guys who were extremely rich.

One reason why they were victims was that they were very rich and this fact was very much in the public domain. These people would be involved in high ticket publicised deals, they would buy extravagant apartments, bunglows or imported cars, and would donate large sums to charity. All of this is evidence to the kind of wealth one carried. Conducting crime such as kidnapping on an evidently rich guy can be quite rewarding.

One another reason for these guys being victims was the concept of social justice. Having money attracts all sorts of attention - even jealous attention. People deprived of the same kind of success or wealth tend to have a feeling of injustice against those who are successful. This increases the possibility of crime.

Coming to think of it, both these reasons are valid today with the Knoweldge Economy heroes. If you think of it, even a middle-management professional in a top-notch IT or ITeS company has a shit load of money. They also exhibit their wealth through various consumption mechanisms. They are also victims of social jealously. Every non-IT guy seems to be jealous of the kind of money these guys manke for apparently "easy" kind of work in comfortable environs. I will write a separate blog about it sometime later.

Though there is a no way to compare the status of a bollywood director with a VP in a IT firm, I would tend to believe that both are equally good targets of crime. They both would roughly be in a position to pay the same amount if their kid is kidnapped. They both would roughly have the same amount of cash/wealth at home.

So, I think the unfortunate incident of Anant's kindapping should act as a grim reminder of the reality that all IT heroes could be victims of crimes. If you happen to be a rich guy in the new economy profession, be careful.

Administrative note

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Note on Tech Log

All tech posts have now moved to http://tech.shreeni.info or you may subscribe to its RSS feed.
In due course, I shall be moving it out completely, so if you follow my tech posts, please shift to following that blog.